The Romans never met a hot spring they did not want to bathe in, and at Germisara, now Geoagiu-Băi, they found warm water bubbling from the ground in a valley at the edge of the Apuseni mountains. They built baths, carved pools into the rock and dedicated offerings to the nymphs and to the healing gods, including small gold plaques found by archaeologists in one of the pools. The site, called Dâmbul Romanilor, the Romans' hillock, sits on the World Heritage list as part of the Dacian frontier, together with the military fort of Germisara in the Mureș valley below. Today, Geoagiu-Băi is again a spa resort, with modern pools fed by the same warm springs.
The resort lies in a narrow valley among wooded hills, a few kilometres north of the town of Geoagiu and the Mureș river. It is a pleasant, slightly old-fashioned place, with hotels, guesthouses and a large open-air pool complex that is popular with Romanian families in summer. The Roman pools, cut into a travertine mound formed by the mineral-rich water, are next to the modern ones, and it is easy to imagine legionaries soaking away their aches here two thousand years ago.
The riding is good. The A1 motorway runs along the Mureș valley, but the real fun lies in the roads climbing north into the Apuseni mountains, toward the gold mining country of Roșia Montană and the Arieș valley. These roads are narrow and twisty, with forests, villages and views, and the surface varies from good to poor. To the south, across the Mureș, the Orăștie mountains and the Dacian fortresses beckon. Weather in summer is warm, with storms; winter brings snow in the hills.
Geoagiu has fuel and shops, and Orăștie and Deva, a short ride away, have everything. The kitchen in these parts is Transylvanian, with soups, stews, polenta and grilled meats, and the spa restaurants serve generous portions. After a day on the bike, an hour in the warm pools is the obvious cure, and you will be in good company: the Romans did exactly the same, and they left their thanks to the nymphs in gold.